Morning Briefing — It’s Back!

Well hey there! Since it’s 7am out here in Boise, it’s still technically morning out in the real world too, so let’s do some briefing, shall we? I’m up so early because I’m going to hockey practice today, not to play, but to watch a player about whom I’m writing a profile. Go Steelheads!

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Please feel free to go and read this lengthy and substantial story about Boise’s minor league hockey team. Just kidding! It’s like three sentences posted by a high-school intern about last night’s game!

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Speaking of Boise, apparently no one wants to come and see our little Bowl football game between turtles and vandalizers. Well, that’s not technically true. Twenty-four people want to see it.

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This couple is goddless and penniless on Christmas. Let’s face it, who isn’t?

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BSU is desparately looking for conservative voices to print in its student newspaper. So all 19-year old right-wingers, please respond quickly. Because The Onion only publishes once a week and we get so bored around here.

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The best newspaper correction of 2008? We vote for the Badger Herald’s:

Due to a reporting error, the Feb. 7 article “‘Porn Nation’ to present tonight” erroneously cited a pornographic website as the sexual addiction survey. The correct website is www.mysexsurvey.com. We regret the error.

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Boise Airport now has the fastest internets in the fucking world! You have no excuses left not to come see us.

Go buy a book

This from the AP:

Powell’s Books is asking employees to scale back their hours or take sabbaticals to cope with disappointing sales.

Powell’s is one of the nation’s largest independent booksellers. But like many other retailers, it is seeing the impact of the recession on sales.

Paul Constant of The Stranger rightly reminds you to shop at local, independent bookstore.

The money you put into local bookstores stays local, and it keeps us all from sitting, pasty-faced, in our apartments and waiting for another drab cardboard box full of books to be dropped at our doorstep. I cannot emphasize this enough: This is important.

That said, I finally found a good used bookstore in downtown Boise. Trip Taylor Bookseller is on 10th Street and completely worth hitting up. It has that air of organized disorder that all good used bookstores have, one that I cannot capture with my own books. Plus, I got out of there with a paperback Joan Didion joint and a hardback Calvin Trillin for less than $17.

Oh, and within their photograph section, they helpfully break out all the naked pictures into the “Nude Photography” subsection, which I thought was a nice touch.

Unlike BCS, NY Times does not snub Boise State football

Can you believe I went to bed 10 minutes before this happened?

The New York Time’s collegiate sport blog, The Quad, ranked this year’s Humanitarian Bowl match between Boise State and TCU as the third best bowl of the sham that passes for a post-season in college football.

A classic match-up of Boise’s high-powered offense against T.C.U.’s stingy defense. Don’t forget that T.C.U. held Oklahoma to fewer points than any other team this season. The scary part about this Boise team is that its much more athletic and talented than the one that upset Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

The best game? Florida v. Oklahoma, of course. Somehow USC v. Penn State got ranked ahead of the Humanitarian Bowl. Probably due to the ongoing drama of  whether 108-year old JoePa will find his way to the stadium.

So does the NYT know something that the BCS doesn’t. Yes, duh, because watching classic underdog Boise State, no matter where you live, is like watching Davidson make a run in the NCAA basketball tournament, and the BCS still ranks teams according to how good they were in 1997.

But Boise State is more than that. Remember two years ago, when that dude scored the winning touchdown in the third overtime on a trick play and then proposed to his fucking girlfriend? What the fuck was that? I guarantee Disney movie executives had a collective orgasm when they watched that shit.

I think Boise State should do something like this every year when they go undefeated and get shipped off to some halfassed bowl game. Like this year, a player can take a paternity test after winning the game, or notarize his will or something. Something life-changing, you know? Come out of the closet to your fundy Christian parents. Something with a little drama.

Boise, the WaPo needs your help

Oh sure, you bring down Nixon and blow the lid off Walter Reed, but you can’t find a goddamn bar in Boise?

The WaPo needs your help, Boise. Don’t let Terps (fat turtles) and sports reporters (fat writers) get lost and stumble into some kind of backwards, Idaho-ish bar where everyone carries guns and has sex with elk militias. Because that’s what the East Coast Liberal Elite think you do here, Boise.

I am calling on all residents of Boise, Idaho, to let Maryland fans and a few reporters know about all the top spots to visit in Boise, Idaho, while we are there to watch Maryland play Nevada in the Humanitarian Bowl on Dec. 30. What are the best restaurants, bars, etc? What should we avoid?

I got one recommendation. Avoid the shit out of Mai Thai downtown. The food is worse than the pun.